


Giving Thanks

by Impossibly_Izzy



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: (but only a smidge), Anxiety, B99 Fall 2019 Fic Exchange, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Grocery Shopping, Hurt/Comfort, Thanksgiving, really it's just a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 12:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20907401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impossibly_Izzy/pseuds/Impossibly_Izzy
Summary: Amy is worried about hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the squad, but Jake is there to help.





	Giving Thanks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [commonemergency](https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/gifts).

> For the Fall 2019 fic exchange, based on the prompt 'grocery shopping for Halloween/Thanksgiving'.

‘So I said, _we know you stole the car, we just want to know what all the rubber ducks in the backseat are about_,’ Jake was saying. And then, ‘Hey, Ames, you listening?’

‘Hmm, what? Yeah, I’m listening.’ Amy tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. She _had_ been listening – mostly. But she had also been trying to decide which dress to wear for Thanksgiving dinner, and whether she should prepare a toast, and whether she should get some frozen pizzas just in case everything went horribly wrong again.

‘Are you okay?’ Jake said. ‘You’re all quiet today.’

‘I’m good.’ Amy pulled into the grocery store carpark and reversed into a space.

She had insisted they drive further to go to a bigger supermarket, because this was Thanksgiving and she took that _seriously_. She had made a list of what they needed, alphabetised _and_ sorted by section of the grocery store to make sure they didn’t miss anything.

‘Cool,’ said Jake. He leant over the centre console and kissed her. ‘Let’s go buy the hell out of this food.’

They were hosting Thanksgiving for the squad, for the first time since the disastrous incident with Amy’s father and a live turkey. This time the turkey was going to be pre-dead and properly cooked, the mashed potatoes were going to be free from baking soda, and all the right people were going to be there. Amy was ready to threaten anyone, including her captain and her husband, if they tried to run off and solve a case. Scratch that – _especially_ her captain and her husband.

‘I wonder if they still have discount Halloween candy?’ Jake said, as they crossed the parking lot. ‘Ooh, or pumpkins! We should have carved a pumpkin.’

‘I’m not stopping you,’ Amy said.

‘You’re just not hyped enough,’ Jake sighed. ‘When we have kids, I’ll carve pumpkins with _them_.’

Jake had been saying things like that a lot recently. _When we have kids, we should go to Disneyland. Ooh, I can’t wait to watch all my favourite kids’ movies again! Hey, have you seen these tiny baby sneakers? _Amy knew not to mistake this kind of thing for _readiness_ – it was more like Jake was testing the waters, verbalising the idea of having children so he could get used to it.

And Amy was okay with that. Now that she knew Jake was on board, now that her fears were assuaged, she could wait as long as he needed her to.

‘We’ll get to take them trick-or-treating too,’ she said.

‘What, and let Holt win the heist?’ Jake scoffed.

‘You think we’ll still be doing the heists by then?’

‘Well I’m not just gonna _give up_ and let Holt win,’ Jake said. ‘But also! Our kids in tiny little costumes!’

And Amy could see them, a little girl in a sparkly witch’s hat, a boy in a skeleton costume. Or something more interesting, vampires or superheroes or cartoon characters. She could see herself at their kitchen table, helping the children decorate masks and pumpkin-shaped candy receptacles, and her heart ached with how badly she wanted it.

‘_Adorable_,’ she said. They walked through the automatic doors and she grabbed a shopping cart. ‘Right, meat’s just up here so let’s get the turkey first.’

‘Sure,’ Jake said.

Amy contemplated the turkey carcasses. ‘What size do we want?’ she wondered out loud. ‘A big one, right? There’s six of us, and Terry always eats a lot… but is that one big enough? What do you think, babe?’

When there was no reply, she looked round, and found that Jake had disappeared. That was pretty standard for any kind of shopping with him – he had a habit of getting distracted. The thing they were currently looking at was always the least interesting thing in the shop to him.

Amy chose the second biggest turkey, figuring she would get plenty of use out of leftovers, and pushed the trolley towards the dairy aisle.

Jake reappeared from around the shelves. ‘So the bad news is they’re out of Halloween candy,’ he said. ‘But I got Christmas candy!’ He held up several bags of holiday-themed chocolate as proof.

‘Candy isn’t on the list!’ Amy said. ‘And also, you can’t get Christmas candy! It’s still November!’

‘So?’

‘So, it’s not Christmas yet!’

‘If you’re not meant to eat it before December, how come they sell it?’ Jake said, like he was delivering the winning blow in an argument.

‘Just-’ Amy was getting flustered already. ‘Put it back and get stuff that’s actually on the list.’

She gave him the sorted-by-section list and kept the alphabetised one for herself, and Jake rolled his eyes but obediently strolled off in search of vegetables. Amy went to the dairy aisle for milk and butter, crossing them both off her list.

She _really_ needed this dinner to go well. Who knew how many holidays they had left with their work family before they had another type of family to think about? Maybe even by next Thanksgiving… but no, Jake needed more time than that. Plus, who even knew how long it would take for her to get pregnant?

But the Thanksgiving after _that_, though. She imagined years of holidays stretching out before her: pureed vegetables, and then baby hands grabbing pieces of food, and then children old enough to talk to them over dinner. Talking about what they’re thankful for, making handprint turkeys, helping with dinner. Amy could see it so vividly: her and Jake and their family.

Jake arrived with potatoes, carrots, green beans, onions, and thankfully no candy this time.

‘Perfect,’ she said, crossing them off her list. She wondered if Jake had thought about future Thanksgivings as well. He was quiet as they walked down the fruit aisle, which meant he could have been thinking about anything from his time in prison to the last season of Game of Thrones.

‘What do you think everyone’s family does when we have Thanksgiving together?’ he said.

Amy put two packets of cranberries in the shopping cart. ‘What?’

‘You know,’ Jake said. ‘Like what are Kevin and Sharon and Genevieve gonna be doing tomorrow? Hey, do you think they have a secret squad-spouses meetup?’

‘Somehow I doubt that,’ Amy said.

‘Then what do they _do_?’ Jake said. ‘Holt and Kevin don’t even have kids, and I know Kevin doesn’t talk to his parents.’

‘He has a brother,’ Amy remembered. ‘Maybe he… should we have invited them all?’

Jake shrugged. ‘I think if anyone cared they would have said anything.’

‘Oh god,’ Amy groaned, looking at her cart full of food. ‘I’m a terrible host. I didn’t even think of it.’

‘Babe, it’s _fine_,’ Jake said. ‘We’ve had tonnes of Thanksgivings with just the squad. I was just wondering.’

‘Maybe I should message them and check?’

‘If you want,’ Jake said. ‘Or we could just focus on tomorrow, and maybe do something with all the families next year?’

‘Yeah, okay,’ Amy said, still feeling guilty. She looked at her list. ‘Oh, we missed stuffing. And garlic.’

They went back for it, and then the only thing left on her list was wine. Charles had convinced her to let him bring a pie, which was probably for the best, because it saved her from worrying about dessert. That said, she was a little worried about Charles’ taste in food.

‘It’s not gonna be weird,’ he had said. ‘I promise! Pie doesn’t need bells and whistles, it just needs to taste good.’

She just hoped she and Charles had the same definition of ‘not weird’ when it came to pie.

‘What kind of wine do we want?’ Amy said, surveying the shelf in front of her. ‘What’s the cheapest thing Holt won’t hate?’

‘Let’s get this one!’ Jake said. ‘It has a corgi on the label!’

Amy scrutinised the bottle. ‘It’s from Texas.’

‘But it’s cheap,’ Jake pointed out.

‘Okay.’ Amy put it in the cart. ‘But if it’s terrible, you’re drinking it.’

Amy grabbed a few of mid-range bottles, and one slightly fancier one. She was _pretty_ sure she could serve it to just Holt without anyone else seeing. She just hoped he liked it. Even though this was the third time Holt had come to Amy’s apartment for Thanksgiving, she was still just as anxious about impressing him.

Her worries were rattling around her brain like loose change in a handbag – should she make a toast? Should she ask Holt to give one? Or Jake? Or someone else? Should she use her mom’s mashed potato technique, or the one she found online? What would Holt think if her mashed potatoes were lumpy? What if –

‘That’s everything, right?’ Jake said.

‘What? Oh, yeah.’

Amy tried to quash her worries as they walked towards the checkout. It would be fine. It _would_ be. She gazed out of the grocery store’s windows, where a couple of trees were beginning to shed their amber leaves.

She remembered last fall: the gas explosion on Halloween, Thanksgiving with her parents. And the fall before _that_, standing in the evidence lockup as October turned over into November. _Amy Santiago, will you marry me? _And the year before that, the turkey incident and Jake managing against all odds to bond with her father. And before that, when Amy won the Halloween heist. And before that, breaking up with Teddy and driving back to New York with Jake, orange fall leaves all around them. And before that, the squad convincing her to like Halloween, and Jake to like Thanksgiving.

If they hadn’t been converted then, they surely were by now. It seemed crazy to look back at a time when she had pestered Jake to wear a suit for Thanksgiving dinner, and he had mercilessly, unflirtatiously teased her on Halloween. _Kind, sober, and fully dressed – good news everyone, we finally found the title of Santiago’s sex tape! _Okay, maybe it was a little flirtatious. Why hadn’t she seen that at the time?

And here they were, five years later, shopping for Thanksgiving together and imagining their future children. A lot had changed – more than she ever could have imagined. Amy moved food onto the conveyor belt in something of a haze. It was surreal, thinking about the turn her life had taken.

They paid for all the groceries, and loaded their reusable bags back into the shopping cart.

‘Do you think the shop-bought stuffing’s okay?’ Amy said as they crossed the parking lot.

‘Yeah, why?’ Jake said.

‘Shouldn’t we have made it from scratch?’ Amy said. ‘That’s what my mom would do.’

‘Your mom bought her own coffee to our apartment,’ Jake said. ‘When she was visiting for _three hours_. You don’t have to do everything she does.’

‘But what if people don’t like it?’ Amy worried. ‘But if we made our own, people probably wouldn’t like that, either. Oh god, why am I doing this?’

Jake gave her a worried look. ‘Babe, are you-’

‘I’m _fine_!’ Amy said.

Why _was_ she doing this? She was a terrible cook. Her Thanksgiving dinners always ended in a disaster of some kind. And Jake was a bad cook in an entirely different way – while she rigidly followed the recipe, he read the first line and then got alarmingly experimental. It was even worse when he went to the grocery store by himself – one time he had made cauliflower cheese with some kind of Chinese beef. It was distinctly weird. Were the two of them _really_ going to be able to scrape together something acceptable?

But they _had_ to. Amy _had_ to do this. She was going to ply them all with so much food and wine that they would have a good time whether they liked it or not.

‘Did we get enough wine?’ she said. ‘Maybe I should grab some more before tomorrow?’

‘Nah, we’ve got plenty,’ Jake said. ‘Ames, I know you said you’re fine, but you seem really worried.’

‘I’m _fine_,’ Amy insisted. ‘I just want it to be good! I _need_ it to be good.’

They got to the car, but Jake made no move to unlock it. Instead, he turned to her and fixed her with an intense gaze. ‘It _will_ be good,’ he said. ‘And you don’t have to do it by yourself – I’ll be there to help.’

‘I know,’ Amy said, her voice cracking. ‘I _know_. I just _really_ want to get it right this time. I want people to have good memories of our apartment for once!’

‘They will,’ Jake said.

‘Last time Charles got attacked by a turkey!’ Amy could hear her voice coming out a little high pitched, hysterical. ‘I had to take him to the ER, and my _dad_ was there, and nobody got any food – nobody ever gets any food.’

‘We have butt-tonnes of food,’ Jake said. ‘Even Terry won’t be able to eat it all.’

Amy felt like she might cry, which was ridiculous. It was just food, just a holiday, but it all meant so much to her. ‘I know. We just… we don’t have many more chances.’

Jake paused, thoughtfully, looking away and then meeting her gaze again. ‘You know that the squad is always gonna be our family, even once we have kids, right?’ he said, gently. ‘It’s not one or the other. And we’ll still be able to do things like this with them.’

He was right, of course he was. Half the squad already had children, and everyone else had a partner outside of the NYPD, and it hadn’t gotten in their way. ‘I know,’ Amy said. ‘I know that, rationally. But it still feels like having kids is gonna change everything.’

‘C’mere,’ he said, and pulled her into a hug. Amy closed her eyes, pressed her face into her husband’s shoulder, breathed in the scent of him. ‘Is that what you’re worried about?’

‘I’m worried about a lot of things,’ Amy said, and Jake laughed.

He pulled back, looked at her intently again. ‘Even if things change, it’s gonna be okay,’ he said. ‘I promise. And whatever happens tomorrow, it’s gonna be great.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘_Ames_,’ he said, with a soft smile. ‘We’ve been through so much together. I think we can survive Thanksgiving.’

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I was being stupid.’

‘No you weren’t.’ Jake hugged her again. ‘You’re just being you – which is the opposite of stupid.’

Amy took a steadying breath, blinking back tears. How did she get so lucky, finding this man? ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘I know you can’t just ‘stop worrying’,’ Jake said, pulling back. ‘But how about we take a break from it for now?’

‘Yeah.’ Amy took a deep breath. She could feel her heartrate slowing, the knot of worry in her stomach untwisting. ‘Let’s do that.’

‘Let’s just go home, watch a documentary, and eat all our Christmas candy.’

‘We don’t _have _any-’ Amy started to say, but Jake reached into one of the carrier bags and pulled out a whole handful of bags of chocolate.

‘Boom! Surprise candy!’

‘I can’t believe you,’ Amy said, trying and failing to sound exasperated. ‘I can’t believe how wonderful you are.’ She took Jake’s face in her hands and kissed him. ‘I love you.’

‘I bet you say that to all the guys who buy you chocolate,’ Jake said. And then, ‘I love you too, Ames.’

They kissed again.

‘We should get out of this parking lot,’ Amy said.

‘Smort.’

So they went back to their apartment, and unpacked what had turned into large amounts of food and wine, and ordered pizza. Amy felt completely justified in ordering out, when they had hours’ worth of cooking to do the next day.

They spent their evening indulging in documentaries and dramas on Netflix, Amy lying across the couch with her feet in Jake’s lap as they passed the packets of chocolate back and forth. Amy was reconsidering her opinion on it being too early for Christmas candy.

She figured that if a toast was needed the next day, she could improvise one. _I’m thankful for chocolate in the shape of Christmas trees. I’m thankful for pre-made stuffing. I’m thankful for all of you, and I’m thankful for my husband – my ridiculous, perfect husband. _

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked that - especially @commonemergency! Thank you for the great prompts :)


End file.
